Quotes and passages on teaching

education - learning

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher
explains. The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.

William Arthur Ward

To focus on discipline is to ignore the real problem: We will never be able to get students (or anyone else) to be in good order if, day after day, we try to force them to do what they do not find satisfying. William Glasser

A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine. . . each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher must never impose this student to fit his or her favourite pattern; a good teacher functions as a pointer, exposing his or her students' vulnerability (and) causing them to explore both internally and finally integrating themselves with their being. Martial art should not be passed out indiscriminately. Bruce Lee

No other job in the world could possibly dispossess one so completely as this job of teaching. You could stand all day in a laundry, for instance, still in possession of your mind. But this teaching utterly obliterates you. It cuts right into your being: essentially, it takes over your spirit. Sylvia Ashton Warner

A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty. John Grogan Marley and Me

You cannot teach people anything; you can
only help them find it within themselves.

Galileo Galilei

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No person can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half
asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teachers who walk in
the shadow of the temple, among their followers, give not of their
wisdom but rather of their faith and their lovingness. If they are
indeed wise they do not bid you enter the house of their wisdom, but
rather lead you to the threshold of your own mind.

Khalil Gibran
The Prophet

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over
which they invite their students to cross; then, having
facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging
them to create their own.

Nikos Kazantzakis

The object of teaching a child is to enable him
or her to get along without a teacher.

Elbert Hubbard

I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element
in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate.
It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess
a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can
be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate
or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a
crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and
a child humanized or dehumanized.

Haim G. Ginott

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide
the conditions in which they can learn.

Albert Einstein

When you study great teachers. . . you will learn much more from
their caring and hard work than from their style.

William Glasser

We now understand that higher-level thinking is more likely to occur
in the brain of a student who is emotionally secure than in the brain
of a student who is scared, upset, anxious, or stressed.

Mawhinney and Sagan

Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible.
Learning is making it possible for yourself.

Paulo Coelho
The Pilgrimage

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our most recent e-zine - Great Thinkers - the people behind the words

When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them
seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to
them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making
them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning.
That’s if you want to teach them to think.

Bertrand Russell

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural
curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

Anatole France

The true teacher defends his pupils against his or her own personal influence.

Amos Bronson Alcott

I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked
the way. I pointed ahead--ahead of myself as well as you.

George Bernard Shaw

A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child
does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he
does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the
child's mind, he does not understand teaching.

Fulton J. Sheen
Life Is Worth Living

Learning and loving go hand in hand. My grandfather was one of those
people who loved to live and loved to teach. Every time I was with him,
he'd show me something about myself that I hadn't even thought of yet.
He'd help me find something wonderful in the smallest of things, and ever
so carefully, he helped me understand the enormous worth of every human
being. My grandfather was not a professional teacher, but the way he
treated me (the way he loved me) and the things he did with me,
served me as well as any teacher I've ever known.

Fred Rogers
The World According to Mr. Rogers

Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail
because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you
this is something you have always known.

Frank Herbert
Dune

The calling of the teacher: there is no craft more privileged.
To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond
one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which
one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future;
that is a threefold adventure like no other.

George Steiner
Lessons of the Masters

Students never appreciate their teachers while they are learning. It is
only later, when they know more of the world, that they understand
how indebted they are to those who instructed them. Good
teachers expect no praise or love from the young.
They wait for it, and in time, it comes.

Darren Shan

We have some inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is through the sale of books, either physical copies or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the online reader). All of the money that we earn through them comes back to the site in one way or another. Just click on the picture to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and non-fiction!

You know that I don't believe that anyone has ever taught anything to anyone. I
question the efficacy of teaching. The only thing that I know is that anyone
who wants to learn will learn. And maybe a teacher is a facilitator,
a person who puts things down and shows people how exciting and
wonderful it is and asks them to eat.

Carl Rogers

I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element
in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a
teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable
or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response
that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated
and a child humanized or de-humanized.

Haim Ginott

An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be
esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the
brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our
human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material,
but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant
and for the soul of the child.

Carl Jung

Think of the best teacher you ever had. Your third-grade teacher,
a college instructor, or someone who taught you crafts or swimming
at summer camp. You knew that person cared, but it wasn't all fun
and games, either. Great teachers often make you do an incredibly
difficult task that seems pointless. Why in the world am I having to
go through this? you ask. Then at some point, maybe years later,
you discovered that the task had a wonderful meaning because it
helped you learn something you couldn't have learned any other way.
And then you finally understood what your teacher was doing. You
had a view of what was going on inside your teacher's mind.

Mira Kirshenbaum
Everything Happens for a Reason

Our future will be determined by the home and the school. Children
become largely what they are taught, hence we must watch
what we teach them, and how we live before them.

Jane Addams

Talent is the premise. It may be released, but cannot be supplied by a
teacher. Neither can the teacher guarantee world fame to his or her
students. Teachers are no magicians; the student is more important
than they. What can a teacher do? At best open a door;
but the student has to pass through it.

Artur Schnabel

There is only one teacher. What is that teacher? Life itself. And of
course each one of us is a manifestation of life; we couldn’t be
anything else. Now life happens to be both a severe and an endlessly
kind teacher. It’s the only authority that you need to trust. And this
teacher, this authority, is everywhere. You don’t have to go to some
special place to find this incomparable teacher, you don’t have to have
some especially quiet or ideal situation: in fact, the messier it is, the
better. The average office is a great place. The average home is perfect.
Such places are pretty messy most of the time—we all know from
firsthand experience! That is where the authority, the teacher is.

Charlotte Joko Beck
Everyday Zen: Love and Work

If I were to ask you, “Which teachers or mentors have had the greatest
impact on your life, and why?” you would probably not cite those who
taught you the most facts. You would more likely remember the teachers
who gave you their undivided attention, looked you in the eye, cared for
you as a person, saw goodness or greatness in you, and inspired you to
be all you could be. I remember some of what I learned in high school
and a little more of what I learned in college. Mostly I remember the
teachers who believed in me and connected with me not just as a
student but as a friend; who saw me not just as the object of
their job, but as a person with potential they could draw forth.

Alan Cohen
The Tao Made Easy